Wow! Such a good movie.

Excellent but underrated film

Beautiful, moving film.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Truthfully, I am a witch (a beginner, but learning) because of "Macbeth." Against a backdrop of personal tragedy, I heard a recording of and read the play when I was 10, and dragged my mother to the Roman Polanski movie (in 1971). Mom wasn't prepared for naked witches.The reason I wanted to be a witch then was personal power; it took me about 25 years to grow up and realize that power isn't the essence of witchcraft--wisdom is. From power comes only the abuse of power and the obliteration of the self. From wisdom comes power and the discernment to recognize that 9 of 10 instances are not worth using that power on. Okay, that's the end of the witchcraft testimonial.This is the most minimalist, claustrophobic, monochrome, and noir-lit production of "Macbeth" I've seen, and I mean that in a good way. All the action takes place within a large circle on a dark stage, with the actors sitting on cubes around the circumference. The costumes are dark and minimalistic--they're of any (historic) period and all periods.This filmed production's advantage over a live performance in a theatre is that the camera focuses on the actors, with master shots of two or more persons and tight head-and-shoulder closeups for soliloquies. The viewer can see the characters' emotional turmoil in the actors' eyes; and we know that the eyes are the windows into the soul. Trevor Nunn's design and direction moves this play from the realm of 'tragedy' to the heights of 'possession by the gods of drama'.Ancient Greek actors often wore masks while acting their tragedies, and I have a theory why. To project the emotional turmoil, to subsume one's own personality to larger-than-life characters, to make the playwright's words live and breathe, in essence, to make the play an offering to the gods and Muses, the actors had to do an early form of 'method' acting. If they *had* performed without masks, I think the audience would have been taken aback by the sheer power of some of those performances--or, I may be reading too much into ancient drama.Without prosthetics, makeup, or lighting effects, the three actresses who play the Witches bar no holds and set no limits to what they do to become their characters, startling the audience and making them cringe and squirm. It's as if their faces 'morph' and they physically *change* because they're unrecognizable in the minor roles they also play.The same is also true of Ian McKellen and Judi Dench; from the end of Act I, Macbeth and his Lady start a slow slide from sanity to insanity, as their consciences render punishment. Ian McKellen as Macbeth is happy but cautious when he's reunited with his wife (Act I, Scene 5), he has no plans to take action until he examines his options; Lady Macbeth instigates Duncan's murder precipitously, with dire consequences. In the medieval world, not only was it a crime to kill a person, but to kill a God-anointed sovereign was a crime and a sin against God. (Elizabeth I was outraged when her Privy Council carried out Mary Queen of Scot's execution; it wasn't that Mary was Liz's cousin, but that she was a God-anointed sovereign that bothered her so much.)In reading about witchcraft around the world, something interesting stuck that comes to mind when I watch this "Macbeth." In Haitian voudoun, congregants communicate with the loa (sing. & pl.), the gods, during a drum-propelled rite of frenzied dancing and other, ordinarily dangerous, acts; these men and women are protected from harm because the loa inhabit and control of their bodies temporarily. In "Macbeth," the actresses playing the Witches, Ian, and Judi appear at times to be "ridden by the loa," possessed by pagan gods--or the Muses, notably in A.I, Ss. 1, 3, 5, 7; A.II, S. 2; A.III, S. 4; A.IV, S. 1; A.V, Ss. 1 & 5. In A.III, S. 4, the Banquet scene, you aren't seeing Ian McKellen, the guy who played Gandalf, Magneto, and James Whale--you're seeing a man whose guilty conscience is causing a complete psychological breakdown, followed by Judi in A.V, S. 1, the sleepwalking scene; the minds of these characters are falling apart from trying to hide their knowing crime and sin.This production has turned Shakespeare's "Macbeth" into a weapon that stabs one's eyes, ears, and mind with horrific actions and images. Don't watch it in a dark room, and don't watch it alone. I give it 10 of 10 stars.

Possible to find a "perfect" adaptation of a Shakespeare play? If this production isn't it, I don't know what is. The entire script is used to full effect, with magnificent performances all round. Shakespeare's portrait of human evil has never looked better.

I was looking forward to this, everyone was raving about it. Then there was a short documentary before it about Trevor Nunn's vision for the play and I got worried. He said that he wanted to get away from the Blasted Heath and Witches that had become linked to the play. I hate to point this out to an important director but Shakespeare wrote them in. So I watched with fear as to what would be done to the play. The witches were there in an altered form, and Macbeth himself says something about it being a blasted heath, so I'm supposing that passed through Nunn's cuts.Other than a director who messed with the play, it was indeed quite good, the actors were very good, especially Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Macduff, Malcolm, Donalbain and Ross, but I couldn't shake off the fear of what the director would do next.As for Lady Macbeth's famous scream, yes it conveyed the horror of what was going on but it also sounded like a kettle boiling. Judi Dench was very good though.

Trevor Nunn has done somthing I never dreamed could be possible.He has staged the perfect Macbeth! Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench, (in my opinion the world's greatest actors)have given the performances of a life time. McKellen's slow decent into Madness is so emotionally powerful that you wonder if anything can equal it,the only thing that does is Dench's own mad scene. Nunn has taken Shakespeare's text and stripped it to its bare emotions,the film is one raw nerve after another from the appearance of the witches and their well acted trances,to the image of the saintly,almost pontifical King Duncan praying after battle. Ian McDiarmid also deserves high praise for his dual role of the austere Thane of Ross and the drunken,almost effeminate Porter. This film is an experience that,once seen,you will never forget.In fact you will want to watch it over an over again. In short,this is Perfect Shakespeare.